Password:

Although it has been evident for some time that General Motors' sale of its Hummer brand to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines Co., Ltd., we didn't expect for word to come down today that the negotiations are dead and the brand will be wound down. Unfortunately, judging by a press release just issued by GM, that's exactly what will be happening. According to John Smith, GM's vice president of corporate planning and alliances,

"One year ago, General Motors announced that we were going to divest Hummer, as part of focusing our efforts on Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac going forward. We have since considered a number of possibilities for Hummer along the way, and we are disappointed that the deal with Tengzhong could not be completed."

As we learned from the Saab sale saga, GM announcing that the brand will be wound down does not completely extinguish hope for another buyer to slip in in the 11th hour, but it does seem highly improbable that a new party will pick up where the negotiations with China's Tengzhong left off.

In the statement available after the jump, GM does not specify what killed the planned sale of the brand, but rumors in recent months suggested that the Chinese government was not keen to sign off on the deal. At the moment, it is unclear what will happen to Hummer's H2 and H3/H3T models, but it is likely that the tooling and manufacturing rights will be sold off to other companies. It is also unclear how many employees will be out of work as a result of the closure.

As with the wind-down of its Saturn and Pontiac brands, GM has pledged to honor Hummer warranties and continue to supply service and parts.

General Motors Corp., seeking to shed unprofitable units after filing for bankruptcy, may have its agreement to sell the Hummer sport-utility vehicle brand blocked by Chinese regulators, threatening 3,000 U.S. jobs.

Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co.’s bid for Hummer runs counter to China’s attempts to develop a globally competitive auto industry by focusing on fuel-efficient vehicles, according to analysts. The government also wants to pare the nation’s more than 100 automakers to ease competition.

“A new entrant in the car industry is not something they’re looking to see,” said Chip Chaikin, who helps oversee $800 million as managing director of Shanghai-based Blue Point Capital Partners Asia. “It’s pretty unlikely” the deal will go through.

Tengzhong also needs to persuade at least two Chinese government agencies that it can turn Hummer into a profitable company to get clearance for the deal, said Zhang Xin, an analyst with Guotai Junan Securities in Beijing. Hummer’s U.S. sales are plunging as higher gasoline prices and rising job concerns hammer demand for its gas-guzzling SUVs.

GM took a key step toward its downsizing on Tuesday, striking a tentative deal to sell its Hummer brand, while also revealing that it has potential buyers for its Saturn and Saab brands.

Detroit-based GM said it has reached a memorandum of understanding with a buyer for Hummer, though it did not name the buyer or the price. The automaker said the sale will likely save more than 3,000 U.S. jobs in manufacturing, engineering and at various Hummer dealerships.

"We're not today in a position to be able to identify a buyer. It was part of the agreement," GM Chief Executive Fritz Henderson told CBS's "The Early Show." "We believe the buyer is quite capable of closing."

The automaker also said Tuesday that it has 16 buyers interested in purchasing its Saturn brand, while three parties are interested in the Swedish Saab brand.

Artist Matthew Harrison today unveils his latest project entitled ‘Hummer’ at the fifth Zoo Art Fair (17-20 October) - a HUMMER H3 complete with wooden wagon wheels, the iconic installation will be parked on Old Burlington Road, London, opposite the Royal Academy of Arts for the duration of the fair.

Harrison is exhibiting on behalf of East London gallery, Limoncello, one of 57 under six year old galleries, project spaces, artists’ collectives, curatorial groups and publications showcasing works from some of the most exciting art talent in the world.

Harrison has combined the legendary off-road vehicle with ‘Wild West’ wooden wheels to create a sculpture that is a mixture of art, engineering and motoring. For Harrison, the crux of the ‘Hummer’ is formed by both its ‘being’ and its afterlife.

General Motors Corp (GM) has received interest from two separate investors from the Gulf Arab region to buy its Hummer brand, the company's Middle East chief told Reuters on Tuesday.

"For sure, there has been interest from various parties within the Gulf ... there is a precedent in the cases of Aston Martin, Ferrari or Daimler and those kinds of solutions could be very realistic solutions," General Motors Middle East Managing Director Terry Johnson said in an interview.

General Motors is readying sales documents for its Hummer brand and has initial expressions of interest from potential buyers that it hopes to develop into formal sale talks, the automaker's chief executive said on Aug 21.

My eyes could have gone without seeing this monstrosity. A fellow in good ol' Dubai decided that his money should be spent on crossing a Hummer and a Bentley. The outcome is pictured and we cry. I'm not sure which one to be sorry for - the Hummer, for getting an ugly treatment, or Bentley, for having its parts put on a Hummer!

Not even a year ago, people were clamoring for a pickup truck version of Hummer’s smallest SUV to date, the H3. Now Hummer as a brand has a cloudy future as GM considers unloading it and its plummeting sales, which are down 40% so far this year with no sign of recovery. With that as the backdrop, we give you the starting price for the all-new 2009 Hummer H3T pickup: $30,750, not including $745 in destination charges. That’s almost $2,000 less than the starting price of the Hummer H3 SUV, which is currently enjoying a blockbuster $7,000 incentive.

Mileage figures aren’t official yet for the H3T, but we assume they’d be similar to the SUV’s 14/18 mpg city/highway. The H3T and Toyota Tacoma with a V-6 engine get roughly the same power, but the Tacoma gets roughly 3 mpg better fuel economy. The H3, however, has more offroad chops. The H3T Alpha with a V-8 engine is estimated at 13/16 mpg. Who thought we’d ever be talking fuel-efficiency and Hummer, but here we are.

The H3T comes out this September, assuming Hummer dealers’ doors are still open then.

Struggling to grasp the depths to which truck sales will fall this year, General Motors Corp. on Monday slashed its planned truck production by 170,000 vehicles -- almost double the size of cuts Ford Motor Co. announced Friday. GM also plans to launch a weeklong zero-percent-for-six-years financing incentive on most of its vehicles, even as it boosts production of cars, crossovers and commercial vans.

"This tells me there's something very alarming in the June numbers and they're trying to get the nose up before the end of the month," said IRN Inc. analyst Erich Merkle.

He had been expecting GM to sell about 200,000 vehicles in June -- a drop of 35% to 40% from last year. With the new discounts, he added dryly: "Maybe then they'll only be down 30%." GM also moved a step closer to selling the Hummer brand, saying it has hired Citibank to help it evaluate the Hummer offers.

Earlier today we heard word that GM would start a sale tomorrow featuring 0% financing for 72 months. The deal will run through June 30, and we’ve just received the list of vehicles included. To be clear, the sale only includes the 2008-model-year vehicles listed below, not 2007 or 2009 vehicles. No hybrid models are included, either. Basically, if you don’t see it below, it’s not included in the sale. There are no real surprises, but check out the list and tell us if you think the sale will help move these vehicles over the next week.

Federal regulators have began an investigation into more than 2.7 million SUVs and trucks built by General Motors between 2006 and 2008 after reports of 41 non-crash engine compartment fires, including 8 fires that may have caused significant property damage along with 16 cases where fires started while the vehicles were turned off. The probe covers 21 models sold by Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC and Hummer.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) investigators are currently examining the electrical system, engine and engine cooling system, battery cables, under-hood wiring, fuses and circuit breakers. For the time being, NHTSA calls the probe an "engineering analysis", but this could eventually lead to a recall of all the affected General Motors vehicles. -See the affected models after the jump.

On Tuesday, June 3, GM CEO Rick Wagoner said the automaker was considering selling Hummer, which saw sales fall 60.2 percent in May from a year ago and 36.0 percent for the year from the same period in 2007.

GM would not comment on the report today, saying the review of what to do with Hummer "is just getting under way." Mahindra and Tata both declined to comment on the talks.

On Monday, June 2, Tata completed its $2.3 billion acquisition of the Jaguar and Land Rover units of Ford Motor Co. David Smith was named CEO of those units.

General Motors is closing four truck and SUV plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico as surging fuel prices hasten a dramatic shift to smaller vehicles.

CEO Rick Wagoner said Tuesday before the automaker's annual meeting in Delaware the plants to be idled are in Oshawa, Ontario; Moraine, Ohio; Janesville, Wis.; and Toluca, Mexico. He also said the iconic Hummer brand will be reviewed and potentially sold or revamped.

Wagoner said the GM board has approved production of a new small Chevrolet car at a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, in mid-2010 and production of the Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle in Detroit.

Wagoner announced the moves in response to slumping sales of pickups and SUVs brought on by high oil prices. He said a market shift to smaller vehicles is permanent.

Saturn tied for the greatest improvement among all automakers' brands in 2007. Hummer was the biggest loser.

More broadly, the Detroit 3 badly trailed the Japan 3 in registrations per franchise, a reflection of the domestic automakers' oversized retail networks. Looking at retail registrations per franchise provides a rough gauge of brand and dealership sales success. The calculation does not include less-profitable fleet sales, which the Detroit 3 rely on more heavily than the import-brand companies.

Last year, the average Saturn franchise accounted for 479 registrations — 55 more than in 2006. BMW division showed the same 55-unit improvement. While Saturn's new-vehicle sales rose in 2007, said spokesman Steve Janisse, the brand reduced fleet sales. "We didn't really change the number of retailers," he added.

Why the change? I'm certain that the recent gas prices have a lot to do with it. Also, kudos being given to Saturn for changing their image from "just a car" to "want to have car". I'm a pretty big Sky fan myself! All it needs is a V8 and I'd be set.

With the rise in fuel prices in recent years, the HUMMER brand has been the poster child for gas-guzzling. For some, however, the rugged vehicles represent a dream come true. The husband-wife art duo of Lauren Was and Adam Eckstrom wanted to make their own H3, and they used $35,000 in worthless lottery tickets to get the job done. The couple's work of art is called "Ghost of a Dream," and the idea behind the name is that people often dream of buying a new car when they're scratching off their tickets.

The final H3 Lottery Edition looks incredibly true to life, and it includes windshield wipers, tires, tow hooks, and all its body panels made entirely out of lottery tickets. The rims are plastic molds lined with coins that represent the principal tool people use to scratch off the tickets. Even if the final work of art doesn't end up in a major gallery any time soon, at least someone has finally found a use for all those worthless lottery losers.